Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is predicted to be included in mass-market mobile devices in the coming years and will enable new application services like payment and ticketing in mobile devices. NFC uses short-range RFID technologies, typically at 13.56 MHz, and contactless card technologies such as Mifare.
One example of how NFC can be used is “smart posters”, which are physical posters with NFC tags attached to them. The NFC tags can for example link to a webpage or contain data that can be processed by an application on the NFC device. A smart poster could be attached to a bus stop where tags contain information about timetables or journey planners that can be processed by an application, e.g. a Java MIDlet.
In the prior art, if a public transport company that decides to put NFC tags on bus stops, the company typically has a specific purpose for every tag they issue, e.g. a tag for timetables or a tag for downloading tickets to a mobile device.
With the systems of the prior art, the purpose of the tag is decided at installation, or requires cumbersome rewriting of data to the tags.
A system called Colorcode, details available at the web address http://www.colorzip.co.jp/en/ at the time of filing of this application, allows addresses to be registered with a particular code in a server. However, there is very limited flexibility in terms of application service selection.
Consequently, there is a need for a more flexible and expandable way of invoking application services in response to near field communication tag reading.